


hope is the thing with feathers

by rfeyra



Category: GreedFall (Video Game)
Genre: Constantin Is Sad, De Sardet Is Ready To Kick The Malichor's Ass, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hugs, More Hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-10-29 14:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20797889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rfeyra/pseuds/rfeyra
Summary: It was not until three days after the averted coup that Oliver finally returned to New Sérène.





	1. hope is the thing with feathers

**Author's Note:**

> An utterly self-indulgent piece, we wanted the soft boys to hug and cry on each other's shoulders so I gave us precisely that. 
> 
> De Sardet belongs to my dear friend to whom I dedicate this ficlet. (sorry not sorry). 
> 
> (the title is a quote by Emily Dickinson)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in wake of Treason!

It was not until three days after the averted coup that Oliver finally returned to New Sérène. In fairness, Constantin had no knowledge of his travels yet he cherished the hope, feeble and ailing, that the cousin would come straight to the palace to see him.

The ill-defined outline of days appeared indistinct as ever. He had spent most of those days abed, too weak to attend to ministerial matters but far too aching to rest. The masked crow, mute and all the more frightening then, stayed out of his sight yet close by, like a vulture wheeling over a field of a lost battle in search of a tempting carrion.

When the doors of his quarters flew open, it startled Constantin for a moment, be his fear of another coup or an unexpected purge, but he promptly regained his temper as soon as the visitor bared his head and the bright red of his hair caught the eye.

He laid aside the book he had been struggling to occupy his mind with and got to his feet from the chaise with such haste he felt a little light-headed.

Constantin would not dare presume he could comprehend the suffering Madame de Sardet endured in her final days, and he sincerely had no heart to imagine how her only son must have felt as yet another person dear to him was slowly giving in to the accursed Malichor.

“Cousin!” he called out.

Oliver covered the distance between them at the same brisk pace. The doors had not fully closed behind him before they threw their arms around each other.

“Constantin!” He exhaled sharply as they embraced. The unmistakable relief in his voice was so painfully evident it made Constantin clasp the woolen fabric of his cloak tightly in both hands. “I feared you might have gotten worse. You look exhausted... Tell me, what of your condition?”

“It has not worsened as of late, although I must admit it is far from comfort,” Constantin confided. He did not break the embrace, in part to conceal his doleful appearance and in part because it was the only thing keeping his grief at bay. “If nothing else, I feel safer now that you are here... But I trust it you have more to share with me.”

Oliver sighed and took a step back, still holding him by the shoulders. “I wish I could bring you better tidings. Thank goodness, father Petrus and I were able to reach San Matheus just in time to intervene. The Mother Cardinal and her advisors were unharmed, to a great extent due to the unyielding faith of some of her guardsmen. I departed right away. I... I haven’t heard of Hikmet along the road.”

Constantin shook his head sullenly. “Alas, it had less luck, or perhaps less loyal servants. It has fallen. It must be flying the banners of the Coin Guard as we speak... Despicable. The governor has sought refuge with us, and yet too many were slaughtered in cold blood. The traitors must be delirious to assume that the nations of the continent are going to trade with them. They will never find a welcoming port.”

“We shall hope so.” Oliver sighed. His hands moved down Constantin’s shoulders and settled just above the ruffled cuffs of his shirt, smoothening the crumpled fabric. “It still troubles me what sort of guerdon Kurt betrayed us for after all these years. I suppose we shall never know.”

“Indeed, I’m afraid he took it with him to the tomb,” Constantin muttered. “Let us sit, my dear cousin, I cannot bear keeping you still as oak in the middle of my quarters.”

Oliver gave him a timid smile and a courteous bow and let go of his hands. He picked up the dusty hat he dropped at Constantin’s feet to embrace him and patted it lightly, raising a small cloud of dust between them. His clothes were all dirty from the road as well, especially the boots, and he hesitated.

“Perhaps I should change first,” he pointed out musingly. “I’m afraid my garments suit an uncleaned stable much better than your palace.”

“No!” Constantin exclaimed before he could even think of stopping himself. “Don’t go.”

Oliver glanced at him and nodded, placing the hat on the table next to the abandoned book. His gaze hardly lingered on the embellished cover. Instead, he unbuckled his rapier and let loose the cloak before taking it off.

Constantin sat down on the chaise heavily and buttoned up his creased waistcoat.

“I am... terrified, Oliver. In fairness, I feel so scared,” he confessed, barely managing to keep his voice down. “For my life, and for... for what shall... All I wished for was to prove myself, to create something... extraordinary, or at the very least not to make a mess again. And...”

He fell silent abruptly and ran a hand through his uncombed hair. The pain was gnawing at his bones and sinew, his whole body aching and feverish, and it was getting harder to express himself with every thought of impending death.

“Curse the ill fate that befell my short reign,” he uttered through clenched teeth.

Oliver sat down next to him in silence. They did not speak. Constantin doubted he could get out a word without choking on it. He had so many hopes - they had!.. He did not delude himself, he knew he was appointed as the governor of New Sérène simply so that he would be as far away from the court and out of his father’s sight as possible. But the expedition became his chance to prove his worth to almost everyone, first and foremost to himself, and to do good for a change.

“This is... unfair,” he forced himself to speak. His breaths mixed with pathetic sobs. He wanted to live so much, he had always so adored life in every aspect of it except inevitable demise. He was simply too young to be bedridden for several weeks' time at best until he went blind and slowly withered away.

The thought of never seeing Oliver again hurt him deeply, as deeply perhaps as the thought of dying.

Constantin sniffled and covered his face with a trembling hand, crying silently. He could not help it anymore, all the aching and despair of the last few days, bottled up like a flask of foul wine, surged up within him and streamed down his face in such bitter tears he wondered if they appeared black in colour.

Oliver took him in his arms again and let him cry, gently stroking his hair. His own shoulders were shaking. Constantin wept, clutching at the front of his doublet with both fists - lamenting his own regretfully short and pitiably uneventful life, and all the dreams that he would never fulfil, and the pain his malady had brought upon the one closest to him, and the sorrow his passing would cause.

The tears ran dry eventually and left him jaded and hollow, gasping for air. He wiped them away and rubbed his eyes with a crestfallen sigh.

“It wounds me to see you like this, Constantin, it verily does,” Oliver breathed out. His eyes were reddened, as well as the very tip of his nose. He looked so dreadfully heartbroken yet resolute as always, ready to act. “I am going to find a cure. I’ve already some promising trails to explore, I... You have my word, I shall not forsake you.”

“Your fidelity is invaluable, albeit undoubtedly misplaced,” Constantin uttered softly. “There is only so much a person can do.”

“Then I will do this much,” Oliver insisted, furrowing his brow.

Constantin felt his eyes well with tears again and looked aside, persistently blinking them away. “In that case, make haste, my dear cousin,” he said with a faltering smile and took both Oliver’s hands in his own, sturdy leather of the travelling gloves coarse and stiff to his bare skin. “For I above all hope to see you succeed.”

“I know. And I will, Constantin, I am certain of it.” Oliver‘s gaze shifted to their clasped hands as he gave them a reassuring squeeze. “I shall be beside you till the very end, and I pray for it to be distant.”

Constantin tittered and sniffled again. “You have such a way with words... Valiantly rushing to my rescue year after year. I must be very special.” He raised a small smile. He was grateful and enjoyed the vehement protectiveness greatly, there was no concealing that, although it was hard to deny that dying in his beloved cousin’s arms would hardly feel just as breathtaking as their usual almost harmless adventures.

Oliver screwed his eyes shut with a plaintive sigh for a long moment before letting go of his hands and, adamantly as always, rose to his feet. “I must not dally. The slightest delay might cost us dearly and I shall not pay for it with your life.”

“Stay, I implore you,” Constantin pleaded. Strength came in short supply yet he mustered all he could to stand up. “For awhile. Let us speak of elsewhat this once. Over a game of chess, perhaps?.. After all, I might breathe my last in your absence.”

“Constantin!..” Oliver flinched. “I know you are speaking in jest and this is yet another display of your astounding strength of spirit but… please, do not say such dreadful words.”

Constantin reached out a hand and gently cupped the side of his jaw, the one marked with the roughened vestige resembling the bark of a maple sapling. “I wonder if this is what saved you from sharing my fate. Has it always adorned your face, cousin?.. I've gotten so used to its sight.”

The Malichor was raging inside him, corroding his very essence and vividly showing through the pallid skin akin to twining vines of blackened veins and blossoms of ashen ulcers.

He yearned for eventual recovery, no matter how scarred the sickness would leave him, and longed to be saved just as Oliver longed to save him, cherishing the fragile, naive hope that together they could easily befool death.


	2. ache is the thing with thorns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in wake of The Suffering of Constantin although Catasach chose to escape the frame.

Constantin had been hurt before, naturally, a number of times despite his tutors’ and Oliver’s tireless protection. He had fractured his wrist, thrice withal, had poisoned himself countless times and had suffered a severe lung fever after a midwinter swim in Sérène harbour, all that in recent years.

Yet when the Malichor came, it set him aflame and plied the pyre with enough brushwood to burn the entire isle to cinders.

The pain was… excruciating. It was agonizing, tormenting, scorching him with such fervor he groaned and writhed in his bed like a snake impaled on a pikestaff. Its blistering spurts were powerful, and devastating, and dementing to the point there was barely enough sense left in him to verge on insanity.

The plague feasted on his brittle bones and frail viscera like a pack of famished wolves as he whimpered through gritted teeth in wait for an uninspiring finale. The faintest candlelight hurt his eyes; he was growing blind day by day as the cataracts slowly beclouded his vision.

It was untimely, and disconcertingly rapid. At better times Constantin desperately questioned the crow in the gloom of the airless bedchamber, never hearing back yet speaking until the voice betrayed him as well. At worse times, as he convulsed and muttered deliriously, his crooked fingers cramped on the cotton sheets in eerie silence. The fabric seemed strangely harsh to the touch.

He sank into oblivion briefly when he could not bear the pain any longer but mostly squirmed on the rumpled bed sleeplessly for hours without rest.

When they came, it was dark, much darker than after daybreak. Constantin could not see the narrow streak of light that seeped through the gap between the opaque shutters and crossed the ceiling. He must have been screaming again. The crow ignored it just like everything else but the maids often took fright.

There were voices, and someone kept tugging at his arms. The thin fabric of the nightshirt rubbed against his sore skin painfully; he tried to push the other’s hands away feebly, to no avail, and panted, shuddering mutely.

Then he felt a freezing touch on his head and everything stopped. The ringing in his ears fell silent and the pain became distant, his tense body petrified and unmoving. He could hear his own shallow breaths in the dull hush that filled the room.

He realized suddenly that it was not his members that stiffened but he who grew still, startled by the sudden release. All at once his parts complied with his wishes again.

Constantin opened his eyes, blinking away the haze and looking around the room wildly. His vision faltering and blurry, he descried a gaping beak of a skull spinning violently right before his eyes. “Wh… what are you?.. Your touch... as ice…” he whispered. “Am I… d...”

“Constantin,” the dreadful skull uttered in Oliver’s shaking voice. “This is Catasach. He is the greatest healer on the isle, he is here to help you.”

“Just when you’re needed the most,” Constantin breathed out voicelessly and went limp with relief. His fingers finally slackened, letting go of the torn sheets. “As... always…”

He was so very tired. The freezing touch lingered, easing his suffering and soothing his strained muscles. Oliver was somewhere close by, or perchance it was another feverish hallucination. He wanted to reach out a hand and touch him but barely managed to raise a finger.

Constantin relaxed for what felt like a mere second and momentarily fell asleep.

When he came to, he still felt so tremendously weary he almost sank right back into slumber. From what he could gather, the night had passed: the streak of light was distinctly visible on the ceiling.

He was still aching but greatly less so, and able to think clearly for a change. He cast a gaze around the room and espied the familiar sight of Oliver’s ginger head reposing on a folded arm. His febrile mind did not imagine the cousin’s presence after all.

Constantin moved slightly, getting used to the irritating sensation of bedding and bedrenched bandages touching his skin and the dull ache that came with thrashing in fever for several days. After the torture he had endured it seemed almost effortless.

He turned over on the side and reached out; his fingers touched the crown of Oliver’s head and ran through his hair lightly. The feeling was almost surreal, as if Constantin’s sense of touch itself was muffled. He gave it another try and closed his eyes again, focussing on what he could feel.

That proved to be ill-considered. He instantly became aware of all of his fresh sore sports at once, wincing at the gnawing itch that had been haunting his waking hours. Every inch of his flesh felt so horridly raw as though his whole body had devolved into a throbbing lump of exposed muscle bleeding onto the sheets.

He groaned and tightened his trembling hand inadvertently.

Oliver’s dormant form shifted as he woke up. Their gazes met and he jolted, scrambling onto the bed hastily from his seat on a cushioned pouffe. He wanted to speak yet no words came out, lodged in his throat like a lead ball stuck in the musket bore.

“I haven’t been so happy to see you, ever, in my life,” Constantin confessed hoarsely.

When Oliver bent forward to kiss his fevered forehead, he mused with odd apathy that he did not feel the lips touch his skin. He raised a grateful smile and wearily rested his head on the pillow corner not yet warmed by his body heat. It was cool and almost crisp to the touch: the covers had certainly been changed.

Oliver was studying his complexion with a look of very thinly veiled, and growing, concern on his face. He was still seated on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch without fumbling around. Constantin delicately slipped an open palm underneath Oliver’s fingers and felt their grip tighten gently.

“It rends my heart to know I cannot bestead you more,” Oliver uttered bitterly. His unguarded sorrow cast long shadows under his eyes and twisted his doleful smile. Such disheartened expression seemed regrettably foreign to his features, just like Constantin was foreign to the land that birthed the one dear to him.

“Don’t be unreasonable.” He sighed. “Or is alleviating my agony not enough of a feat for your ever chivalrous nature? Would you rather spirit me away from the Reaper’s doorstep once and for all by virtue of a pure miracle? Verily you are true to yourself, cousin.”

Oliver’s smile broadened and grew a lot more sincere. “If truth be told, yes, gladly. Have the olden fables taught you nothing? Fate favours the unyielding, Constantin. Even the history of Congregation is replete with stars to stir by.”

Constantin let out a quizzical hum. To his knowledge, the records of their disingenuous nation had always been abundant with felons rather than luminaries. He cast a glance at their linked hands and ran a thumb over Oliver’s knuckles. “Those are mere tales, I’m afraid. You must not fault yourself for my sake.”

“Don’t they say there is a grain of truth in every tale?” Oliver parried readily.

“A grain, perhaps, but hardly a sackful.” Constantin drew a shaky breath and endeavoured to raise himself on the tumbled pillows. His attempt came out uncouthly, if not to say pitiful. The sheer inability to change position abed without assistance was, contrary to all reason, greatly embarrassing.

Ashamed, he strived to conceal the helplessness that befell him even though he knew Oliver would never consider his plight a burden. It was cruel of him to reprove himself for being too frail. The torment of the past days ingrained deeply upon his mind; he was nothing but fortunate to be breathing and by God he was grateful for that.

“Forgive my being enfeebled,” he muttered when Oliver helped him up. “It appears my youthful vigor has fully ebbed. No, no, please, don’t be discouraged. I take nothing but comfort in your presence, I truly do.”

Constantin shook his head joylessly and did not protest when Oliver put both arms around him and took him in a protective embrace. Instead, he reclined his head against the cousin’s shoulder despite the prickliness of his woolen vest and clasped both hands tightly behind his back.

They did not speak. Constantin screwed his sore eyes shut and imagined, timidly, blissfully, that they were in Sérène again - the original one - defiantly neglecting yet another unexciting reception somewhere at the back of the overgrown royal gardens. In their youth they would steal outside the second his venerable father turned his oppressive gaze the other way.

Constantin’s faux grandstanding flaked under scrutiny like shrivelled varnish. As proud as he was to bite back, he loathed feeling insignificant and rued his passing to be his parents’ final disappointment. For all his hope that Oliver would choose to inform them in a formal letter rather than in person, he feared such expectation was vain. Perpetual vexation did not become him: while Constantin was by no means a forgiving person, the better part of his grievances tended to be short-lived.

He knew without a doubt they were running out of time at full tilt, and wished for nothing but to chaffer for every minute with whoever agreed to spare. They were called the Congregation of Merchants for a good reason. Akin to the rest, he was rather well versed in trade.

“Cousin?..” Constantin called thickly as Oliver carefully yet ineluctably disentangled himself from the unabating embrace. “Must you be going already?.. What tender words might tempt you to defer?”

Letting go of him left the arms unpleasantly empty.

“None presently, I’m afraid... It shall not take long, you have my word, but I must hie after Catasach before my biding imperils you any further." Oliver met his clueless gaze and raised a heartening smile. “Catasach, the native healer who agreed to aid us. Yesternight I took the liberty of reassigning my guards to him for a short return trip to Wenshaganaw. He should already be back.”

Constantin remembered, albeit as hazily as a fever dream. “The birdly skull… I should have surmised as much,” he muttered musefully. “For aught I know of his kin they are not intent on extending a friendly hand and instead are waging wars against our allies… I haven’t forgotten his kindness but doubt you not this man is up to no mischief?”

“Would I let him near you elsewise?” Oliver looked genuinely baffled. He placed a palm over Constantin’s locked fingers, careful not to disturb the crusting ulcers. “We are taking chances putting our trust in one of those who want us gone from their land, I agree. But Catasach is a wise mál, and a sympathetic man from what I could gather. You shall be safe in his care.”

"I… Forgive me. I did not mean to sound mistrustful." Constantin could not forbear a regretful sigh. “Be assured, dear cousin, once all my hope is gone but a fracture it shall be for you to be safe as well... You went to great lengths to help me - argue not, I beg of you - even when there were less forlorn endeavours to take part in. A simple ‘thank you’ is an ill expression of my gratitude. I’m beholden greatly to you… such a shame I shall never repay this debt.”

Oliver’s attentive gaze quailed. “I truly wish your fair-spoken manner stung me less,” he admitted with vulnerable honesty. 

It echoed in his voice and reflected in the downturned curve of his mouth. He hunched over impulsively and rested his brow upon their joint arms in Constantin's lap, crumpling the creasy bedspread at his side. Yet another apology curdled on the tongue. Constantin bent down silently and buried a soft kiss in the cousin’s hair, his shuddering exhale evanescing in its calamine brass.  


An ephemeral hint of a tickle was all but imperceptible on his insensate skin. He quickly wiped an unbidden tear on his shirt sleeve and settled a palm just below Oliver's loose collar with a tentative brush of curled fingers against his nape. Whatever the fault, he took no pride in abject despondency. He would forgo his own feelings with nary a thought if need arose but in his feckless talk he never sought to wrench another’s heart. 

Never once did the Malichor leave a chance for a miraculous recovery, it was by far not a foe to concede defeat. There was no denying it: he would die, eventually, a horrid and painful death. He knew that Oliver would come if he called, would stay if he asked. They could at least spend the last days - weeks, perhaps - side by side.

The far-famed d’Orsay obstinacy ran in the family rather than in the blood. Against all odds they persevered with their foolish quest, one struggling to achieve the impossible, the other shifting his feet at death’s door as his jaded spectre mustered the courage to give a knock.

Constantin could not, wanted not to let go, so he sipped the lant Catasach concocted like it was the finest thélèmian wine (the earthen vials braided with leafless stems strengthened its fusty smell and a taste to match but kept the lant from spilling whenever his fingers cramped) and abided the nettling tingle of liniments, each day less helpful than the last.

Erelong they help no more. He comes round on the half-pace of his own throne room after another seizure to the sight of a bleary bone mask spinning before his eyes.

It talks to him in a foreign tongue and a voice just faintly familiar. It offers a solution and he consents without fully recollecting himself - desiccated like a charred bough, reduced to soot and smoldering cinders.

More fire shall come, that much can be foretold easily, except it shan’t be blazing from within him for once.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sending a raven  
With blood on its wings  
Hoping it reaches you in time  
And you know what it means  
'Cause out here in the darkness  
And out of the light  
If you get to me too late  
Just know that I tried
> 
> (c) Sam Tinnesz - Far From Home (The Raven)


End file.
